The great English soups are, real turtle, mock turtle, ox-tail, gravy, giblet, hare, green-pea soup, and pea soup. The great English broths are, chicken broth, mutton broth, Scotch-barley broth, veal broth, and beef broth or tea, which is almost equivalent to the French grand bouillon.
Real turtle soup is seldom made in private houses, unless of the very highest distinction. It is generally obtained ready prepared from the Waterloo Hotel at Liverpool, and from some of the great taverns in the City in Bishopsgate or Aldersgate Street, or from Gunter’s at the West end, who has jars ready prepared, from the West Indies and Brazil. Twenty-five years ago a great deal of turtle used to come to London prepared by Weeks, of the Bush Hotel,[11] Bristol. But Bristol then, and antecedently, stood at the head of the West-India trade, and there were those who preferred the Bristol-made turtle to that of Birch, Bleaden, or Kay. But the Bush Hotel no longer exists, and London now bears off the bell for its turtle soup, as well as for its calipash and calipee.
Turtle generally arrives in this country about the latter end of May or the beginning of June, though, from the uncertainties of a sea voyage, no exact period for its first appearance can be fixed. In the year 1814 it was so unusually late, that at the banquet given in Guildhall to the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia, on the 18th of June, there was no turtle to be had. The weight of a turtle varies from 30 lbs. to 500 lbs. or 600 lbs., and the price from 2s. 6d. to 5s. per pound. The cooking of a turtle is generally performed by a professed artist, whose fee is from one to two guineas. Some epicures prefer the turtle cut into steaks and broiled, to be eaten with melted butter, Cayenne pepper, and the juice of a Seville orange. They say the flesh thus quickly dressed retains most flavour.
This soup is, says Carème, the most lengthened in its details of any that are known; “the composition of its seasoning claims an able hand and a strong memory: the palate of the cook who executes it should be very fine; none of the ingredients should predominate, not even the Cayenne or allspice, which the English cook inconsiderately employs.”
The great artist divides the dressing of a turtle into four operations, and on each expends a page. In order to dress the turtle as it ought to be prepared, he says, two large legs of veal, eight fowls, lean ham in slices, sweet herbs, beef stock, the nut of a ham, cloves, Cayenne, allspice, mace, long pepper, white pepper, eight bottles of dry Madeira, and sixty eggs, are necessary. It is therefore clearly better for those who wish to give turtle soup at a dinner, to have a quart or gallon of it from some first-rate hotel, than to go to the expense of all these ingredients.
Gravy, ox-tail, mock turtle, and giblet soups are much more common at English dinners than real turtle soup, for the two sufficient reasons, that they are more easily prepared, and that they are less costly. Ox-tail, mock turtle, hare, and giblet soups are still made in the fashion in which they were at the beginning of the present century. Calf-tail soup is simply made by substituting pieces of calf-tail for ox-tail. It is much more delicate than ox-tail, and very nutritious.
The stocks for white soups are made of veal, mutton, fowl, rabbit, chicken, ox-feet, calf’s head and feet, with bacon and ham. In drawing these stocks, a bit of ham, ham-bone, or lean bacon, is used with the usual seasoning. Fish may be used in thickening meat white soups; they give a turtleish lightness and flavour. Eggs make an excellent thickening for the poorer kinds; but the richer or more delicate, are thickened with almonds and artificial or real cream. Though the stocks be properly made and well-seasoned, the thickening and finishing, nevertheless, require great care.
As to French soups, their name is legion. There is scarcely a complete French treatise on the art of cookery that does not contain receipts for at least 150 soups; but those most used at English dinner-tables are, the purée à la Reine, the purée des carottes au riz, the purée de lapins, à la Chantilly, à la Colbert, à la Dauphine, the potage à la brunoise aux pointes d’asperges, à la paysanne, the à la Julienne, and à la jardinière. There are also the bisques d’écrevisse, de crabe, de chevrettes, &c. But for all these soups the aid of a really accomplished cook is necessary. Italian soups are generally of macaroni, semolina, or of rice; but these, whether à la Medicis or à la Corinne, are much better prepared after the French than after Italian receipts. No human being who had any taste in cookery would think of giving the German soup made of green rye, or the soup of poached eggs after the Styrian fashion; and Russian and Polish soups are not suitable to English stomachs. The Russian cabbage soup may suit a people who love train oil (which Theodore Hook used to say was “bad for the liver, but good for the lights”), but assuredly it would be rejected by any civilized Englishman.
I have said in another place that the Dutch eel soup, and the soup of herring-roes, is very relishing.
To sum up, a host in England can never go wrong in ordering in the winter months for his guests an ox-tail, a mock turtle, a calf-tail, a giblet or mulligatawney from among English soups; or a brunoise or purée de gelinotte, a Julienne, or a purée à la Reine if he requires a French soup. For the spring and summer, English spring soup may be given with turtle, green pea, a soup à la Condé, or à purée de navets, or à consommé à la Xavier.